


takes one to know one

by somestrangecircus



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Episode: s05e09 Last Resort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-16
Updated: 2009-08-16
Packaged: 2017-11-08 17:29:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/445690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somestrangecircus/pseuds/somestrangecircus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes there were perks to being an idiot. -thirteen, house. post-ep for "last resort."-<br/>EDITED 1/19/2017</p>
            </blockquote>





	takes one to know one

**Author's Note:**

> EDITED 1/19/2017  
> Dear God, it's been a while since I played at fanfiction, but it brings back nostalgia and I need some of that.  
> Mostly just did some cleaning up here and there, and/or expanding on some of the dialogue, but the bulk of it remains untouched. It fucking blows my mind that something I wrote in 2009 is actually salvageable.

She's still in the hospital, staring at the ceiling with bleary eyes and willing sleep to come, when she hears the door open.

She unconsciously holds her breath a little, wondering who it is. Kutner and Taub have both been by. Cameron has been by—a little surprising, since Thirteen isn't exactly friendly with her, but then again, it's Cameron. She's told Foreman to sign her up for the drug trial.

Then she hears the clacking of his cane on the floor, and she sighs.

He pulls up a chair and sits next to her bed. She turns to look at him. "Hey," she says.

He just stares, and the glint in his eye is familiar. It's the same intense glare he gave her every time she shot up a new drug, in that bright room with the gun.

For a long time, neither of them says anything. Completely silent, and she's torn between being grateful for the lack of noise and being miserable at the fact that now she can hear a voice pounding in her head—

_I don't want to die I don't want to die I don't want to die_

—all too clearly.

Eventually, he says, "You really are an idiot."

\

Eventually, she's discharged, with orders to "take it easy for awhile." She translates that to "take a day off work to sleep and then come back like nothing ever happened."

Only it did.

She isn't sure how she's feeling about it, yet. She feels slightly less inclined to go out and get wasted. Slightly less inclined to hook up with a random girl in a bar. Slightly less inclined to rot herself from the inside out.

(She really _doesn't_ want to die.)

 

\

 

On her first day back, she gets a hug from Kutner and cheerful welcome from Taub and Foreman. House doesn't say anything. She takes a bit of comfort in it.

\

At lunch, she eats by herself. She wonders if Foreman expects her to eat with him, now that they're sharing in some fantastic drug trial experience.

She sees House and Wilson eating on the other side of the room, talking about something. She watches them for a moment.

She watches _him_ for a moment.

She still remembers that look he gave her—dark, forceful. Asking _what the hell do you think you're doing?_

(To tell the truth, she still isn't sure herself.)

It takes a split second too long for her to realize that he's staring back now.

With a little start, she looks down at her food.

\

Right before she's about to leave for the day, she goes to his office to deliver some test results. He accepts them quietly, and she turns to leave.

"When was the last time I called you an idiot?" he asks.

Her hand pauses on the door, and she half-turns, smiling faintly. "Two hours, thirty-seven minutes, and nineteen seconds ago."

"You're an idiot."

"But I'm alive."

He shrugs. "True."

She turns all the way around as he stands up from his desk, watching her. "Heard about that drug trial," he says.

She sighs. "Right."

"You look thrilled."

"Right."

"If you don't want to, then don't."

She lets out yet another sigh, more agitated this time. Her hand, still twisted behind her and attached to the doorknob, twitches.

"It's not going to do any good," she says. Her words feel almost _forced_ —they are hard to get out, and yet she keeps going, because she feels the strange, insatiable need to explain, to make him understand, to understand herself. "And for once, I actually want it to. But it's not going to change anything."

He doesn't reply to that, only keeps his eyes on her. The sense that she hasn't explained herself well enough presses, and eventually, it drags out another admission: "I don't want to die," she says softly.

He nods a little. "Right."

\

The next day is a little more normal. She's falling back into routine. There is Foreman and talk of the drug trial, and she wants to avoid him but doesn't.

At the end, she's taking the elevator down when it stops, and House says, "Howdy," on his way in. He hits a button with his cane. She sighs and leans against the wall.

"Hot date tonight?" he asks, one eye on her.

"What?"

"Is she a looker? Or are you skipping the girl-on-girl and just going straight for the meth?"

She's a little surprised, and doesn't hide it. She can't quite grasp that he's talking about her. The her who came to work wasted and got caught shooting up IV fluids. She used to be that person—and it's strange, but now she feels a distance from whoever that was, even though it's a short time that separates them.

"I'm going home," she says finally.

"Booooooring," he sings, drawing out the word.

"What are _you_ doing tonight?"

He pulls a face of mock indignation. "Aw. I'm hurt."

She smirks. "I'm sure you are."

The elevator opens. They both walk across the lobby, toward the door.

"So, what?" he continues. "You going celibate? Taking the drug-free pledge? Maybe born-again Christian?"

"I would sooner pluck my eyes out with toothpicks."

"I might have one left over from Wilson's lunch."

She opens the hospital door, keeping her face carefully neutral as she glances back at him. "I just need a change."

"Is this the part where you go on about near-death experiences and how they change you as a person?"

"I'm trying not to be such a cliché."

"That's a shame," he says. "Because if you were still a cliché, then I could probably get laid."

"Don't worry, House." She smirks. "Some things never change."

"Like what?"

She pretends to think about it for a moment. "Well, I'm still an idiot."

And she might be, actually, because the fact that he's half-smiling at that line makes her feel undeniably, pathetically happy.

She thinks she remembers hitting her head at some point during the day.

"Is it disappointing?" she asks.

"Is what disappointing?"

"The fact that I'm trying to change."

The look he gives her is unreadable.

They make it to the parking lot—past the lights on the sidewalk and enveloped in darkness—and then he shoves her against a car (she's not sure whose). His eyes are bright in the shadows, and she opens her mouth to talk but he doesn't let her say a word (he's not one to waste time).

His mouth is hot on hers, and pushing, hard. It takes her only the briefest moment before she's kissing him back, with a growl rising in her throat.

Suddenly he shoves her back again, harder, and she hits the car with enough force to really hurt, but she ignores it and presses closer, her hands grabbing at his jacket.

_Not enough._

"Idiot," he whispers in her ear.

"What's your point?" she answers.

\

It's heavy, heated, as they spill over the sheets, still half-connected at the mouth. She gives him a little moan as they fall back and it's more than she's ever given.

His hand slides between her legs, across her thighs (her jeans are gone and she can't quite recall when they disappeared) and he leans in and says it again.

_Idiot._

And suddenly she reaches for him, and she's pushing back now, harder, wrapping around him fast.

"If I'm such an idiot, what does that make you?" she breathes.

\

Next day: she goes to get coffee and finds him there, watching. (Waiting? Unlikely. But too soon to tell.)

"Of course, the real reason you're an idiot is that you're still drinking decaf," he tells her.

Her laugh is soft and swift.

"So buy me something better," she replies.


End file.
